


The Innocent

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, spain has weird festivals?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the 28<sup>th</sup> and Romano wishes he hadn’t agreed to come to Ibi. Except that’s a lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for [mikazuki_kagami](http://mikazuki-kagami.livejournal.com). I didn’t say anything about it for a long time, so you might have forgotten that I said I’d do it in the first place, but… anyways. I hope you like it!

When Spain didn’t meet him at the train station, Romano knew something was wrong. The wrongness, like a wayward swallow, flew up from under the tracks, wound through the hordes of humans and hit Romano smack in the middle of his forehead. He didn’t like the feeling, and resolved to tell Spain as much with a fist to his stupid, forgetful, stupider, impossible, stupidest, handsome face. But that would have to wait until Romano got to Ibi.

If the idiot had even remembered their plans in the first place.

Romano stepped into Valencia’s early morning bustle and, before weighing his options, complained silently to himself. Spain _always_ met him at the train station. In the past he’d stood to the side of the crowds, bobbing ever-so-slightly back and forth from his heels to his toes, unable to stand still from the excitement of it all. Trains had been relatively new then, and Romano had rarely visited. Trips to the train station to pick Romano up had been an excitement of their own.

Sometimes Spain had been unable to contain himself, and had journeyed ahead. Romano would barely be out of Milan before a familiar head would poke its way into his compartment and excuses would have to be made to the ticket-taker because Spain was too stupid to remember that he actually had to _pay_ for things in Italy. When they were lucky, the conductor was Spanish and Spain could merely wave an arm. When they were not as lucky, the conductor was Italian and Romano had to make a scene, because apparently arm-waving only worked for Spain and monarchs and Veneziano if he cried a bit too.

As he and his brother grew, Romano tried to prove to Spain that he could travel on his own. Romano refused to send anything other than his arrival time ahead. He switched between trains and coaches. Once he’d even driven his _own_ car, only to find Spain waiting impatiently in the passenger seat after Romano had taken a break from driving to take a piss. Romano swore he’d only been gone for a _minute_ … In the end, Romano had only been able to get Spain to leave him alone and let him get into the country by his goddamn self by taking the ferry to Barcelona.

Apparently Spain didn’t much like randomly appearing on boats ( _as an added bonus, Romano no longer had to travel at all through France_ ).

Romano had hated it when Spain hadn’t let him make his own way to his house. But, staring into the morning sun, Romano realized that he hated something else much, much more. That something was more like a lack of something, or someone, standing just within the caution line on the platform, holding a bouquet of fresh-cut flowers, still bouncing on his heels because he hadn’t changed _that_ much, smiling too much for his own damn good.

That something hadn’t shown up for the first time in over twenty years and Romano felt as though someone had stepped on his heart. He took a deep breath.

Let it out.

And decided that when he got his hands on Spain he was going to make the bastard fucking _suffer_.

_RING_

“Roma?”

“ **YOU**.”

“Me?”

“…Where the fuck are you?” That was not a whine. Romano was not whining.

“I’m hiding!”

He could ask the obvious question or he could shout more. Romano decided to go with both. “ **Why are you hiding?!** ” A flock of birds erupted into flight. Three bleary-eyed tourists flinched. Romano glared at all of them before hunching over his phone and edging into an unobtrusive corner.

“I’m trying to trick you, Roma” crackled into Romano’s ear from his shitty phone. But it whispered from behind a nearby stack of crates too and in a quick moment Romano had his phone back in his pocket and his hands balled into fists.

Sure enough, Spain was sitting on the pavement behind the crates, still listening into his phone, eyes closed in concentration. He had no flowers. Romano kicked him in the head. But not as hard as he could have ( _he was generous like that… and there were people staring_ ). Spain shook off the blow like he had been doing for years and jumped to his feet. He made no mention of how he’d abandoned Romano on the platform or how he’d been skulking behind a bunch of boxes or how he’d been acting even weirder than usual. “I’m happy to see you too Romano! How was your Christmas? Did you and Veneziano have fun? How is Veneziano? Whe—”

“I’m hungry.” The scars on Romano’s heart ( _the hypothetical scars, nothing Spain could do could ever hurt Romano because Romano didn’t care he didn’t_ ) would mend with time. But breakfast would help.

“— with Germany, oh! You’re hungry?” he said it as though it was something out of the ordinary. Romano wondered if the kick had been a little too hard after all. “Then… have this! I bought it for you.”

Spain fumbled through his pockets before presenting Romano with a little cake, wrapped in parchment paper. It was still warm. “Thanks. I guess.” Thinking that maybe even Spain could do things right once every few decades, Romano sniffed the confection before shoving half of it into his hungry mouth. A mistake. “The fuck?!”

What looked like a sugary delight tasted like bitterness and salt and _fish_ and Romano couldn’t spit it out fast enough. Spain looked beside himself. “¡Inocente!” He shouted it again for good measure, louder, and even if Romano only _thought_ half the city heard it, the entire country definitely felt it.

And Romano remembered. It was the twenty-eighth. The twenty-fucking-eighth of December. He scowled. “I hate your holidays.”

Spain only laughed and snuck in a quick hug before walking away. “I missed you too, Roma. Now let’s get going, we don’t want to miss anything!”

Perhaps Spain had won the first battle, by hiding and giving Romano food made out of pure disgusting ( _Romano bet it had been made in Germany_ ). Perhaps Romano shouldn’t have forgotten about Spain’s odd way of celebrating the Day of the Innocents. Perhaps Spain thought he was ahead…

But Romano had stolen his wallet.

Two hours and fifty Euros later, Spain and Romano arrived safely in Ibi. Three hours, one hundred Euros and seven slaps later, Romano was alone in a barren wasteland. Except for the part where Spain wouldn’t fucking stop throwing handfuls of flour at him “Stop that, dammit!”

Spain’s voice, muffled by all the flour in the air, floated over to Romano’s ears from the left. “I can’t! This is what the festival is abo—oof!”

Romano watched with vindictive pleasure as one of Spain’s own citizen’s caught their Kingdom in the face with an egg. And he remembered: he always visited Spain on December twenty-eighth because on the Day of the Innocents he could throw things at Spain and put signs on Spain’s back that read things like ‘Kick me!’ or ‘the man standing next to me is 1000000x sexier than I am’ and no one would bat an eyelash. In fact, last year when Romano had put an ‘I’m an idiot!’ sign on Spain’s back, three of Spain’s lovely residents had giggled behind their hands. And Spain had just thought Romano was being affectionate.

 _Loser_.

Trapped in a daydream, Romano failed to notice the spray of flour heading straight for his face until the stuff was coating his lungs. He ran.

But not fast enough, and before he knew it, Romano was tossed into ‘jail’ along with thirty or so of the townspeople. Well shit. He hadn’t come to Spain just to stand around covered in egg and flour, he’d come to Spain in order to laugh at _Spain_ for standing around, covered in egg and flour! “Spaiiiiiin!” The townspeople ignored him. “Get me out of here! SPAIIN! Spaaaaaiiiiiiiii—” 

Someone tapped Romano on the shoulder. “Roma, I’m right here.”

Oh.

“What the fuck are you doing captured, huh? How are you supposed to rescue me if you’re captured too?” Romano huffed. “Think things through more often why don’t you.”

Spain scratched the back of his head. Romano could only barely tell that Spain’s hair was supposed to be brown through all the mess. He distantly wondered what _he_ looked like… “Sorry Roma. But don’t you think it’s nice?”

“What’s nice?” If this was another attempt at playing a trick…

“Being stuck here together! All alone…”

Alone? “What about them?” Romano pointed at the townspeople also stuck in the wimpy cage. They continued to be preoccupied with their festival and paid Romano no mind.

With one floury finger, Spain turned Romano’s face back to his. “That’s a trick Roma. I only see you.”

Later, Romano would swear to anyone who didn’t say a word but who looked at him funny why are you staring fuckface mind your own business that the words had not affected him. They hadn’t. Not at all, and neither had Spain leaning in close to engulf Romano in a powdery, sticky embrace before kissing him in a crowded town square.

He tasted like paste.

And, Romano later reflected, that was the only reason their tongues had stuck together for so long.

He hated Spain’s holidays.

**Author's Note:**

> In the words of a website I stumbled upon: [the Spanish love throwing things at each other](http://gospain.about.com/od/spanishfestivals/tp/throwing_festivals_spain.htm). And while it was tempting to write about Spain throwing rats… I restrained myself. Barely. [And here’s a nice slideshow of the flourfight](http://www.demotix.com/news/213896/mock-coup-d-tat-ibi-spain).
> 
> Merry Christmas! Oh, and once it turns the 28th in your time zone, gullible is written on your ceiling. Thought you ought to know.
> 
> “get into the country:” I couldn’t think of a better way to phrase this
> 
> “bitterness and salt:” I swear I didn’t think about this until after I wrote it.
> 
> ¡Inocente!: this doesn’t translate super well as an idiom. It’s the Spanish December-y Day of the Innocents equivalent of shouting APRIL FOOL’S!!!!!111shiftonelol at your friends after doing something vaguely awful to them on April first. So just having him say ‘innocent!’ wouldn’t completely cover it. Therefore, I left it as the Spanish. Also: upside-down exclamation marks are cute, I don’t get to use them enough. Because ¡I’ll have the fish! Or ¡Ich liebe dich! just look odd. Although. That last one would be pretty funny for a Germany-awkwardly-confesses-his-love-to-Spain story.
> 
> Double Also: the irony of Spain playing tricks on the innocent / gullible is beautiful.


End file.
